How to cut out the mud on palm mutes

[Soultrash]

My approach is actually pretty different, maybe because i am mainly using my
AXE FX II for recording!

When i am recording guitars, especially with high gain tones i want a tone that's balanced or "even"!

You can try to achieve this with EQ settings, be it pre or post amp, or you can use a drive pedal to
boost certain frequencies and cut others, however i have discovered that the main reason my tones were way too "pronounced" in certain areas of the frequency spectrum is actually this...

If you take a closer look the marked area has a significant boost as DEFAULT.
if you want clear guitars wth no boominess then this is definitively where you do NOT want to boost anything.

Once again, i am speaking about RECORDING, though i can not imagine why such a boost would be beneficial in any other situation as you mostly want this are to be "clean"!

I do understand that this might be a somewhat realistic representation
of speaker resonance but again, for a clear tone you probably do not want any resonance in this area!

I'd suggest something like this...it's an easy dial so maybe you will like it, for me this absolutely works!

 

[B:ASSMASTER]

Andy Sneap C4 trick

This.

 

[Tahoebrian5]

Okay so once again my patch made at home sounds like ass at the studio even though I cranked it up super loud at home. i like the MBC idea.

 

[FractalAudio]

Less gain, more right hand.

Yup

 

[simeon]

an old trick we used to do back in the day, was use a high pass filter before the amp, but tie the cutoff to envelope

 

[REDD]

Just use the Angle amp with the shimmer drive and back down the gain in the amp. Perfect and tight palm mutes for days.

 

[GotMetalBoy]

For that style, the trick is rolling off HUGE amounts of low-end (like the Cab block's high-pass at 200, for instance), and having that space be occupied by the comparatively cleaner bass guitar.

The electric guitar is more percussive and high-mids than anything.

General tips:
1) Boost mids and cut bass before the Amp block
2) Use the Gate block, put it after the amp, and sidechain it to the Axe input.
3) Low master volume. Depending on how "djentle" you want to be, you can just turn Sag (aka the power amp) all the way off.

You may have some success with using the Andy Sneap C4 trick, wherein you use a multiband compressor to compress only the woofy low-mids, where palm mutes tend to cause a big build up.

That's pretty much my process too.

One of the reasons I bought the Axe-Fx II is because it had a side chain noise gate. Side chain gating has been one of the main ingredients to my style of playing and tone. It's one of the most overlooked techniques.

 

[B:ASSMASTER]

That's pretty much my process too.

One of the reasons I bought the Axe-Fx II is because it had a side chain noise gate. Side chain gating has been one of the main ingredients to my style of playing and tone. It's one of the most overlooked techniques.

I don't have much experience using the Axe's gate block. So, I'm guessing it doesn't have the ability to remove low-end frequencies from the detection signal?

 

[Wolfenstein98k]

I don't have much experience using the Axe's gate block. So, I'm guessing it doesn't have the ability to remove low-end frequencies from the detection signal?

No, but I've seen it hypothesised that the Intelligent setting does something like that.

 

[Bakerman]

I don't have much experience using the Axe's gate block. So, I'm guessing it doesn't have the ability to remove low-end frequencies from the detection signal?

Gate/expander block has adjustable low cut & high cut for detector signal. Input gate doesn't.

 

[Tahoebrian5]

Hey @REDD , you mind posting your Angle patch?

 

[REDD]

Hey @REDD , you mind posting your Angle patch?

I will when I can, I'm laid up with a major bad broken foot. Can't go to my studio in the basement and can't drive to my practice place. I can give you a basic rundown though. Shimmer drive is default, I don't touch a thing, input is around 4 or 4.10, drive is about 6. Bass is 4 I think, mid and treble straight up at 5, presence is default 3.30 I think. Depth is default 5? Master on 4 and my own impulse responses. When I get healed up I can get you a preset withmy ir's if you want them.

 

[GotMetalBoy]

I don't have much experience using the Axe's gate block. So, I'm guessing it doesn't have the ability to remove low-end frequencies from the detection signal?

Gate/expander block has adjustable low cut & high cut for detector signal. Input gate doesn't.

Also, the Gate / Expander block has to be used because the input gate can't be side chained.

I use the input gate with as low of a threshold I can use, just to get rid of a little noise and to cleanup the input going into the Amp block.

I use the Gate / Expander block after the Amp block with it side chained to the input, so it cleans up all the amp block noise.

 

[dr bonkers]

The problem sometimes with using the multi band compressor is that if your low end is beating the snot out of the preamp normally without the compressor, all you are doing is limiting the volume of that frequency band if you are using it before the Amp block. Then when you do your post power amp EQ, you are boosting volume on this compressed block of low end.

Rolling off your low end before the amp block, insert gate block if necessary after the roll off, dialing low end down more as needed in the amp block, lightly compressing in the amp block, and then adding the low end back with with the mark V EQ or passive 5 band EQ still can yield dynamic tight playing without things getting too woolly or tub thumper-ish.

Sometimes just additionally widening the low end Q on the speaker page does interesting things to the sound as well.

Also check the IR you are using in the cab block and your low cut there. Changing the IR can yield very dramatic results.

 

[Jonathan Thomas]

an old trick we used to do back in the day, was use a high pass filter before the amp, but tie the cutoff to envelope

What does tie the cutoff to envelope mean? Please

That's pretty much my process too.

One of the reasons I bought the Axe-Fx II is because it had a side chain noise gate. Side chain gating has been one of the main ingredients to my style of playing and tone. It's one of the most overlooked techniques.

Also, the Gate / Expander block has to be used because the input gate can't be side chained.

I use the input gate with as low of a threshold I can use, just to get rid of a little noise and to cleanup the input going into the Amp block.

I use the Gate / Expander block after the Amp block with it side chained to the input, so it cleans up all the amp block noise.

How do I side chain to the input of the amp? And what is side chain, is it just running it parallel?

Sorry, these are dumb questions but this is something I’d like to learn about. Thanks

 

[Desmo808]

What does tie the cutoff to envelope mean? Please



How do I side chain to the input of the amp? And what is side chain, is it just running it parallel?

Sorry, these are dumb questions but this is something I’d like to learn about. Thanks

I can't answer the envelope question, but for the side chain:
In the gate block, there is a simple selector menu. Just choose "input" in the selector.

It's not running in parallel. Side chain tells the gate where to meter its threshold from. The advantage to side chaining to input is that you can create a noisy-as-hell (or feedbacky-as-hell) signal path, without having to set the threshold so high that it will choke off notes. The INPUT gate gets rid of your pickup hum. The gate BLOCK, side chained to the input, subsequently silences all other noises preceding the block. It's the same concept as an ISP Decimator two-channel gate.

 

[Jonathan Thomas]

Wow, so the side-chained gate really helped and pre and post PEQ blocks are really tightening things up for me, some of the best sounds I've had for a long time. Thanks @Desmo808 for explaining.

 

[GotMetalBoy]

What does tie the cutoff to envelope mean? Please

I'm not in front of my Axe-Fx II right now, so my wording may be a little generic but you can attach controllers to parameters, like how you can assign an expression pedal to the wah but instead of assigning the low cut frequency to an expression pedal, you assign it to the envelope. An envelope follows your picking dynamics, so you can set it to lower the low cut frequency when picking soft and then increase the frequency as you pick harder.

If you need more help, I can share a preset as an example.

 

[B:ASSMASTER]

Gate/expander block has adjustable low cut & high cut for detector signal. Input gate doesn't.

I thought those were just regular ol' high-pass and low-pass filters. Like in the Cab block.

 

[Stormbringer]

an old trick we used to do back in the day, was use a high pass filter before the amp, but tie the cutoff to envelope

I'm not in front of my Axe-Fx II right now, so my wording may be a little generic but you can attach controllers to parameters, like how you can assign an expression pedal to the wah but instead of assigning the low cut frequency to an expression pedal, you assign it to the envelope. An envelope follows your picking dynamics, so you can set it to lower the low cut frequency when picking soft and then increase the frequency as you pick harder.

If you need more help, I can share a preset as an example.

Hey guys, could you please take a screenshot of how you set up your high pass filter's cutoff tied to the envelope?

Thanks in advance!